A magic box for structured products

Ten years ago, creating a structured financial product was a full-day activity. Today, it’s a matter of seconds. With the launch of the Markets Toolbox in 2009, Julius Bär offers its intermediaries a new way to create structured products on the fly — without in-depth legal or technical knowledge.

Together with Julius Baer, we have set a further impulse to increase usability, and therefore productivity, and joy when searching for the best investment ideas.

Breaking the complexity

Since the Markets Toolbox was introduced in 2009, more and more products, asset classes, underlying assets, and order types have been added. As a result, complexity increased, usability decreased, and working with the Toolbox became difficult. To counteract this trend, we were asked to rethink, restructure and redesign the Toolbox so that different financial experts could work easier, faster, and more confidently again. The start and endpoint of our redesign was the latest sub tool "Spark". Spark would later serve as a reference for the user-centered redesign of the entire toolbox.

Make the user's voice count 

The toolbox Spark enables account managers to process big data and advanced analytics into attractive investment solutions for customers in seconds. To understand their workflows, pain points, goals, and needs while operating, we conducted on-site interviews and contextual surveys with several account managers. From the results, we then derived design principles of how the new interface should look, feel and work like, namely:

• —Efficient: Fast & direct
• —Supportive: Smart & proactive
• —Extensive: Informative & relevant
• —Modular: Flexible & personal

Simplified operation

We built a new information architecture and navigation patterns to create a consistent and simplified operation The new concept is based on three main action areas and allows users to easily tackle and complete their tasks.

• —Toolbar: Contains all meta functions like menu, alerts, notifications, profile, settings, centralized help.
• —Navigation: Switch between different tools e.g. Spark, Derivatives Toolbox, Cockpit.
• —Workspace: Creating, checking structured products, pricing, trading, etc.

The power to search

Our user research has shown that relationship managers take different approaches when searching for structured products with Spark: Either they know exactly what they are searching for or they want to browse for information and inspiration. To deliver the best results in both cases we added a power search to the sub tool Spark. With the new power search bar, they can either enter specific criteria or select an investment style that matches their strategy. Additional filters provide many options to specify what they are looking for. The results list allows a clear overview to compare or sort the displayed products.

A fresh look that sparks ideas

Tools have to be appealing, delightful, and make one’s life easier. So we not only cared about how Spark works but also how it looks and feels. For the new design, we used a wide range of the corporate's color blue, a lot of whitespaces and added some new and fresh colors. The result is a clean and modern design that doesn't distract from the tasks at hand but adds here and there a spark to inspire people in their daily business.

Setting new standards 

Together with Julius Bär, we have humanized their Markets Toolbox by focusing on its users and their needs. Thanks to the new structure, intermediaries can navigate the platform more efficiently, regardless of their task. The new search function and redesign of the sub tool Spark make finding structured products faster and more delightful. Spark serves as a north star for upcoming tools and sets new standards for the fast-growing trading platform.

Project facts

Project team